Environment

Brazil is planning to set up its second scientific station in Antarctica and its first fully automatic data collecting module close to the Southern pole, revealed Jefferson Simoes coordinator of the country’s National Science and Technology Institute.

The Mexican airline Interjet has successfully conducted the first commercial bio-fuel flight in Latin America, using a jatropha-based fuel that reduces air pollution by 80%, according to company officials.

Opposition to the Isla Riesco coal-mining project in the extreme south of Chilean Patagonia suffered a setback Thursday when Chile’s Comptroller General rejected accusations of a conflict of interest at the highest level of government.

President Sebastián Piñera declared much of La Araucania in Chilean Patagonia, disaster areas on Wednesday, as four days of non-stop snowfall have isolated the region’s predominantly rural communities and wreaked havoc on basic utilities.

Retail sales in the Patagonian region, which suffered the full impact from fumes and ashes spewed by a neighbouring Chilean volcano, plummeted 49.3% during the first half of July compared to a year ago, according to a survey from the Argentine Confederation of medium sized companies, CAME.

Residents of Dichato, Chile, capped off a week of demonstrations with violent protests to demand the government revamp assistance efforts for victims of the tsunami that devastated the area in February 2010.

Many trucks loaded with perishables and other food products heading for Punta Arenas extreme south of Chile are stranded in border crossings with Argentina blocked by the snow that has accumulated during the last storms.

Japan has imposed a ban on all beef coming from the prefecture of Fukushima, where three nuclear reactors melted down following the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. The Japanese government is also apologizing for its delayed response to radioactive meat reaching the market.

Denmark-based Vestas has secured an order from a consortium created by Brennand Energia and Companhia Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco in the north east of Brazil to supply turbines with a total capacity of 90MW for three wind energy projects.